How to tell Thunderbird to Request Confirmation Before Deleting an Email or Empty the Trash

How to re enable confirmation warnings before deleting an email or Emptying the Trash Folder on Mozilla Thunderbird

I tend to delete emails from Thunderbird using SHIFT+DEL out of habit when I’m sure I don’t want that message any more, but recently I accidentally ticked the check-box that tells Thunderbird not to ask me if I’m sure I want to delete such message(s).

Although safer, I didn’t want to delete messages then empty the trash. For whatever reason I wanted to return to the past behavior. In case this has happened to you, here are the steps to get the warning back:

Go to the Tools Menu

Click on Options

Click on Advanced

The picture below shows the Options-Advanced Window. In the lower right you’ll see the “Config Editor” button. Click on It.

You will receive a fair warning as this. Click on I’ll be careful, I promise!

Now you’re on the configuration section. The value I want to change here is:

mail.warn_on_shift_delete from false to true. To change the value, just double click on the line.

If you want to re-enable the confirmation for emptying the Trash folder, the value you should modify is: